


On the Virtues of Kale

by Lumelle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 01:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4727990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumelle/pseuds/Lumelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has a plan, really he does. He's not just doing random things out of frustration at his lack of ability to actually fight gun-toting psychopaths with supernatural powers. He's the magic expert here, after all, he totally has a plan.</p><p>He just needs to explain to Derek why throwing greenery at said gun-toting psychopath's head is an absolutely valid life choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Virtues of Kale

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt, "Will you stop throwing kale at the psycho with the big gun?". For all you mad people who got me into Teen Wolf in the first place. You know who you are.

"Will you stop throwing kale at the psycho with the big gun?"

"Let me see… nope." Just to make a point, Stiles threw another little ball at the psycho in question. Well, he hoped he did; he wasn't about to look over the partition that was currently the only thing shielding him from the, well, big gun. He was going to assume he hit judging by the howl of pain and the burst of bullets that followed, hitting the ceiling above them and causing plaster or possibly crumbling masonry to fall down. Well, either he hit the bad guy or one of the wolves did so, which was a possibility. Anything was a possibility, but Stiles rather liked to think he was the one responsible.

"And I guess you're also not in a hurry to explain why you're doing something so ridiculous, either."

Stiles paused, looking at Derek. His unwilling companion was propped up against the opposite wall, which didn't leave much distance between them in the small balcony thing of what Stiles could only assume was a church. Why they would find an abandoned church nobody seemed to know about in the middle of the woods, he wasn't sure, but then not being sure was more or less what his life consisted of nowadays. It was to their advantage, anyway, particularly now when Derek was trying to recover from the very bad wolfsbane poisoning he had managed to get entirely by accident, which Stiles supposed was better than someone trying to kill him on purpose, but still very inconvenient when faced with, well, psychos with big guns.

"Will you help me if I tell you?"

"I thought I was already helping you." Derek was, indeed, helping him crumble leaves of fresh kale into small balls with the aid of rubber bands. It was about the most effort he was allowed to make after he'd almost collapsed in the stairs on the way up here. Which would be a problem later, considering Scott had decided the best way to keep them safe from the psycho was to break the stairway, but they would worry about that later. Stiles wasn't going to show his face before he was sure there would be no more bullets.

Lydia was so smart, staying out of the whole thing. Lydia was always so very smart.

"Yes, well, I was thinking we might have more success if, you know, one of us could actually aim. And since we've established he has no wolfsbane in his bullets, it's theoretically possible you could peek over the partition and chuck one of them at his head."

"I thought I wasn't allowed to move." Derek sounded like he was trying to protest, which was ridiculous, he didn't even look pale as much as he did gray. If they hadn't been in kind of a life or death situation here, Stiles would have tried to make him go to sleep, but he supposed all the werewolf growling and such going on down below wouldn't have allowed them to relax anyway.

"You could lean on me, though. Or maybe use your super wolf hearing to tell me how far off my throws are."

"I might try if I had any idea what you're trying to do." Derek lifted an eyebrow, because he was never too tired to use those eyebrows, obviously.

"Well, you know how we kind of established this particular psycho is a kind of vampire hybrid? And religious symbols weaken him because strong belief channels magical powers or something, and people believe that religious symbols work on vampires, so at least for this particular kind it's true. And I am aware I should be able to explain this better because apparently I'm supposed to be the magic expert of the pack, but honestly Deaton is the worst teacher ever. Being mysterious isn't very good for explaining things."

"Nor is rambling, you realize." Derek didn't sound actually angry, though, so Stiles felt quite safe to ignore him. He knew damn well what Derek sounded like when he was angry. "And yes, I'm aware. That's why we chased him here, though I'm dubious of how effective this place is when none of us even knew it was here. I'm pretty sure being magically shrouded or something makes it less religiously valid."

"Yes, well, my theory is that's why he managed to step in and not go up in a puff of flames and smoke." Not that Stiles knew just how much stuff like this was supposed to affect the vampire, but again, bad teacher. Also no textbooks. He'd have totally aced his magic practical exams if he'd had a textbook, even when the practical exam consisted of "survive a gun-toting vampire attack while your strongest fighter is weak enough that rubber bands are presenting a challenge."

"And what's any of that got to do with tossing greenery at him?"

"Dude, have you ever been on a healthy eating website? It's a religion, don't doubt that for a second. I like to think I'm taking care of my dad's nutrition, but some of those people make it their whole life. Going to church once a week is nothing compared with spending your whole time obsessing over the next thing you eat. If everyone was that picky with what they put in their mouths, oral sex would never have been invented."

"Well, it would require liking meat at least." Derek was smirking, now. Why was he smirking? "And kale?"

"Kale is the holy symbol of many things. Healthy eating, raw food, vegetarians, everyone's going gaga over kale. It's not the best thing, no, but it's the best we're going to find when all we have is a dilapidated church with all the crosses fixed to the walls and the groceries I was carrying when we had to flee from a crazy gunman." And his poor dad was waiting for his dinner. He'd probably order pizza or something if Stiles took too long to show up.

"You're throwing kale at a psycho vampire because it might be holy enough to hurt him."

"Hey, I saw him after I hit him right in the face. It definitely left a burn mark. And considering he seems to have a healing factor so claw marks and bite wounds don't stick, I have to at least try to do something."

"He's a nasty piece of work, all right." Derek sighed as Stiles threw a couple of more balls of kale over the partition. "I should be down there fighting."

"And you would be if he hadn't, you know, tackled you into that wolfsbane bush." Which, really. Stiles wasn't even sure it had been on purpose, the guy seemed to far out of his mind to do any sensible planning. "Anyway, at this rate you'll heal up before the others manage to finish him off. I'm kind of feeling embarrassed for you guys, you know. I thought wolf packs were supposed to be cooperative and stuff."

"Wolves work better with an alpha in the fight." Except their alpha happened to be sitting up here and trying not to die.

"And they don't have one. So I'm going to sit tight and toss these over my shoulder and hope one of them hits him somewhere it hurts."

For a moment, Derek watched him with an unreadable expression. Then he lifted his head a little, which, really, that was a good sign, this was the first time he moved properly from where he had been slumped against the wall. "Cora!" he shouted over the din of the fight. "Everyone! Try to shove these down his throat!"

Stiles didn't need to be told to toss as many of the kale balls over as he had left, followed with any spare leaves. Less aerodynamic, sure, but probably easier to grasp. There were more angry sounds echoing off the halls, and then more gunfire, cut suddenly short in place of a choked scream.

For a moment, there was silence. Then, Erica's voice rose up to them. "He's, uh, he's kind of down. What do we do now?"

"Find a stake and put it through his heart," Derek called back. Stiles should have felt horrified his at even suggesting something like that, but, well, this guy had already killed, and was perfectly willing to do so again. He might lose some sleep over it, but then he didn't sleep very well anyway. "Also cut his head off if you can."

"Got it!" There was a moment of silence, then Scott shouted back. "Wait. Do you mean a wooden stake, or, you know, an actual steak? It's just, we already used veggies."

Derek groaned and hid his face in his hands. Definitely a good sign, Stiles decided, even as he leaned his own head back against the stone partition that had done an excellent job of shielding them. The ceiling above had a lot of very nasty bullet holes. "Wood. Or, hell, try a carrot if you can find one around here. I'm out of dinner items to give."

From there things got awfully simple, at least once the had solved the question of how Derek and Stiles were supposed to get down. Cora and Erica had seemed far too smug as they simply leaped up to the part of the stairway Scott hadn't destroyed yet, then jumped back with one passenger each, given how Derek still wasn't quite up to his usual superhuman feats just yet. Werewolves. Always showing off.

There was the body to get rid of, which the pack handled with rather frightening efficiency, and some more explanations, because apparently "just trust Stiles" was out of the question for these ungrateful bastards. Then he had to get home, except his dinner plans had to be reworked thanks to the kale spread out across the church and the chicken that Derek ate, without even asking mind you, with the excuse that it would help him heal faster. Which it did, so at least it wasn't complete bullshit, but it was still inconvenient to say the least.

When he got home, though, his father had indeed ordered pizza, which was horrible — the act of ordering the pizza, that was, not the pizza itself — and caused Stiles to give him disappointed glares the whole time he was eating his share. At least he didn't starve, which was probably good, even though starving to death would have saved him from so many problems in this madhouse of a town, really. No more stupid werewolves needing him to give them stupid advice, for one thing.

It was kind of creepy how he woke up a couple of days later to find a very ancient-looking book — no, a tome, this was definitely a tome — on his desk when nobody was supposed to have been in his room, but really, that was fine. Werewolves in his bedroom were fine, even if they weren't always invited. It was funny what kind of things you could get used to if you had no choice. The tome seemed to be full of magical and mystical lore, anyway, and that was more than enough to get him to forgive quite a few things, because this was so much better than digging up defunct sites from the depths of Internet and trying to figure out which were legit and which were just the ramblings of yet another oh so dark teenager trying to channel his melodramatic angst into the Dark Arts.

(Stiles was officially immune to teenage angst. Really, he was. He was dealing with far too much crap to worry about that kind of thing.)

As for the note stuck between the pages of the book, mentioning with very terse wording that Derek had kind of consumed his dinner and would Stiles be interested in Derek making this up to him by taking him out to dinner sometime, well, that was even better.

Even if he suspected the little "XOXO" at the end had been written by Cora.


End file.
